Denver Nuggets vs Portland Trailblazers Dream11 Prediction : Dream11 Fantasy Tips for DEN vs POR as The SportsRush helps you form the best possible Dream11 Team.
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Saturday is a great day as both matches represent possible playoff trailers with home court advantages at stake. If you thought Nuggets, based on all the positive chatter around them through the season were challengers for top seed and a virtual lock for 2nd seed, think again. Denver has a 52-26 record. It has 4 matches left.
Behind them sit the Houston Rockets just 1.5 games behind with a 51-28 record. Just 2 losses behind Denver who’s next 3 games are against Portland, Portland again and then the Utah Jazz (who are on a 6 game winning streak). 3 losses and not only will Denver not be the 2nd seed, but they might also go down to the 4th seed given that in 4th now sit Portland with a 50-28 record that will read 52-28 as compared to the Denvers 52-28 record if they win both their upcoming head to head encounters. They would hold 3rd seed with a better head to head record for the season.
Boston Celtics vs Indiana Pacers Dream11 Prediction
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Denver come to the game on the back of a rebound victory against the San Antonio Spurs who played 47 minutes of their game without head coach Greg Popovich after he got ejected from the game after 63 seconds. Problem for Denver is, the game before that one was against another top half team from the west in the Golden State Warriors who pulverized them for the third time this season. While Portland comes on the back of two back to back victories albeit against non play-off teams in Memphis and Timberwolves. Previous head to head matches of the season have both gone Denvers way but by a combined total of 4 points pointing to how close both games were.
Dream 11 Team:
PG: Damian Lillard (21.5 Cr) & Jamal Murray (14 Cr)
Damian Lillard is the heart and soul of the Portland team and is the center of everything that they produce. He is averaging 26 points, 4.6 Rebounds and 7 assists per game this season and those are great numbers that have become customary for Lillard. He has upped his game this season against big teams after playing some of the worst basketball of his career against the New Orleans Pelicans last season in the playoffs and has gotten even better since Jusuf Nurkic went down in March with a gruesome fracture.
Jamal Murray is a microwave scorer who relishes a good match-up and can go off for 40 points on any given night. His average for the season is a bunch of career highs across the board with 18.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists. With no CJ McCollum, microwave scorers on either teams are limited and Jamal Murray might be the best bet to get a 30 point performance outside of Damian Lillard.
SG: Malik Beasley (8 Cr) & Rodney Hood (7 Cr)
Malik Beasley was a relative unknown at the start of the season but his form has improved so much that Isaiah Thomas no longer gets a look in the game unless its in garbage time. Beasley has become the de facto leader of the 2nd unit for the Nuggets and thats no small feat given how deep they play. He can heat up any moment and provide either scoring or play making, giving him a differential factor for the game.
Rodney Hood has resurrected his career after moving from the Cleveland Cavs and given CJ McCollum’s absence he becomes the 2nd go to scorer behind Damian Lillard on a lot of plays. His numbers have been on the rise with close to 15 points per game without CJ, so he has the potential to provide differential value at lower price than Jake Layman who can disappear several games at a time.
SF: Will Barton (10.5 Cr)
Neither team relies too heavily on scoring or play making from the small forward position. Will Barton provides the best hope of points averaging a healthy 12.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3 assists per game for the season.
PF: Al-Farouq Aminu (11Cr)
Aminu is crucial to the Blazers system as he plays solid defense averaging close to a block and a steal per game to go with 7.5 rebounds and 10 points per game. He will be matched up against Paul Millsap who is a good defender but often has to leave his assignments to cover for Jokic. Milsap would have been a better pick but comes in at a very high price of 13.5 Cr and given the depth of the roster at Denver and his unselfish play, he can be a liability on a fantasy game even though he might have great impact on court.
Center: Zach Collins (6 Cr) & Nikola Jokic (21 Cr)
Zach Collins has been impressive this season both on the defensive and offense end of the floor. His playing time has gone up since the injury to Nurkic and Enes Kanter’s allergy to playing defense. He can grab big rebound numbers and given his ability to shoot the 3 ball against Jokic who isn’t very mobile, his speed and bounce might be handy for the Blazers team.
Nikola Jokic is as close to a triple double machine as there is in the NBA. I do not count Russell Westbrook because he has surpassed triple double machine parallels. It would be a poor game if he didn’t get a triple double, given his own standards. Jokic will benefit greatly from Nurkic’s absence and can bully Kanter and Collins in the paint. He has also been looking to score more recently after Mike Malone and other Nuggets coaches asked him to be more aggressive in looking for his own shot. But positively for the Nuggets, while Jokic has turned up his shooting numbers, his assist numbers remain the same so he continues to be a points machine on Dream 11.
Star Player: Damian Lillard
Damian Lillard scores 26 points per game along with 7 assists and 5 rebounds. What more reason do you need? If you do need more convincing, he will be guarded by Jamal Murray, another offensive player who can’t defend very well. And Lillard averages 30+ points against the top 4 teams on either conference this season. Thats a pretty solid pick for star player there.
